


Empty Bottles and Empty Hearts

by moonpiefsn



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Deathfic, Gen, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Post Reichenbach, TRF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-19
Updated: 2013-06-19
Packaged: 2017-12-15 12:40:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/849678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonpiefsn/pseuds/moonpiefsn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Summary: It doesn't take long for John Watson to realize that he'l never truly recover.<br/>In fact, it takes three days.</p><p>~</p><p>Angsty drabble vignette, just trying out some shortfic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Empty Bottles and Empty Hearts

Up on my side where it is felt,  
I pack a little pistol on my pistol belt.  
I think I might be scared  
Of the man and the men with their hands inside  
And the women, oh the women, all they do is cry  
And I, well I lose my mind.

-"Little Pistol" by Mother Mother.

~

 

On the first day, he does nothing.

He does not cry.  
He does not think.  
He would not breathe, if he had the mental capacity to do otherwise.  
If this were a drama film, he would be sobbing himself to pieces on the kitchen floor, every dramatic cry a piece of art in its own accord. If it were a television sitcom, it would be quick, soon forgotten to make room for other affairs to occupy the mind of the fabricated character. But this is not a film and this is not fiction.

He only sits in his chair, and stares forward at nothing for hours on end. He thinks it was hours. A part of him hopes it was only hours and not days. A part of him doesn't care.  
Half of the flat is gone. It would seem that way, as the multitude of biological specimens, not to mention the medical and/or scientific equipment that once littered their home was either in boxes, or gone completely.  
He had been happy to see it go.

He hated it. He hated it all.  
He despised this room and this chair and this city. He loathed himself and Lestrade and Mycroft (god he hated him) and he detested the fact that he was breathing, and the taste of bitter irony consumed his consciousness like an aching muscle. He hated Sherlock for throwing him away.

Most of all he hated himself.

He didn't eat anything. He didn't sleep, god forbid.  
It wouldn't be fair. It was wrong. All of it was completely and utterly wrong, and he knew it.  
The only sound he recognized was the occasional ding of his phone, across the room on the table. He didn't check the messages until the next morning. There were six.

You were missed at the funeral precession.  
MH

I sent a cab to Baker Street, is it safe to assume you didn't receive it?  
MH

It would be appreciated if you could reassure me of your existence, Dr. Watson.  
MH

some of sherlocks things are at barts, if you want them.  
GL

are you there?  
GL

sorry. ill leave you be. call or come down if you need anything.  
GL

He ignores them all. He hates them all. The irony intenses, and a wave of jealousy for Sherlock washes over him. 

'Honestly John, the irony is horribly sentimental. Do be creative.'

There. Sherlock's words are there. Imprinted into his code, and sewn into his well being. Shadows of a sentence on the page.  
It doesn't last long, for he dismisses it almost immediately. Not immediately enough, it seems.

 

~~

That second morning, he drinks.

The irony that after a nearly a year he remembers where the bottle of wine that he got for christmas is, over the fireplace behind Sherlock's collection of The Feynman Lectures On Physics: Set V. It tasted vile, but he didn't much notice.

'Drinking away your feelings? Pathetic, are we?'

One glass.

'Ghastly vintage, that bottle. I wouldn't touch the stuff.'

Two glasses.

'Drowning yourself isn't going to bring me back you idiot.'

He downs half the bottle.

'It's your fault.'

By the time his mind and lips are numb, the wine is gone, his throat is burning, and his heart is empty.

He calls Lestrade.  
Who picks up after the second ring, even though it's four in the morning on a sunday. 

"John?"

"Lesstrade"  
His words are garbled and they fumble over each other, as if every vowel tries to force it's way out at once.

"Bloody hell are you drunk?"

"Mph."

"Jesus- I'll be over in five. Wait where you are."

The phone beeps, signaling the end of the call. John sits down and runs his fingers through his hair. The room is distorted, and black spots creep into his vision and his intoxicated head pains increase. Luckily Lestrade arrives faster than he said he would.

'Lestrade. Fashionably early, are we? Do give John an aspirin he's gone and gotten himself drunk.'

John's fingers cradle the empty wine bottle, and when Lestrade runs into 221b to see a formerly confident, emotionally sound doctor, now a drunk mess with pale skin and thinning frame, the look on his face was comical. It would be anyway, if not given the circumstances. 

"Jesus fucking christ, John."

He snickers, which leads to a laugh because god Lestrade's face is just perfect. 

"S'funny, in't?"

Lestrade is mildly terrified at this point.

"What are you-"

"Y'used to run in all th'time, for cases for Sher.. Sher.. for Sherlock.. and now your here cause m'me. S'funny."

John giggles, and the bottle slips from his hands and falls to the floor.

"Is'my fault, ya know. If i'd nev'r met 'im, he'd not have'ta kill m'self an he'd still be alive! I should be dead n'stead of him, right?"

"Jesus- okay. John? Do you understand me? I'm going to call someone to come help you. Okay?"

John is entirely occupied with the buttons on his shirt collar, so Lestrade phones Mycroft and explains the situation. 

'My god, you really are pathetic. I'm glad I'm rid of you.'

He wakes up hours later in his own bed with iron in his brain and cotton in his chest, and finds a neatly written note on his bedside table.  
When he sees that it's from Mycroft he ignores it completely and goes back to sleep.

The third day he sleeps.

He doesn't talk.  
Nor does he for days and weeks after.  
Not to Mrs. Hudson or Molly, certainly not to Lestrade or Mycroft. 

And then, decidedly, on the beginning of the third month, he unlocks the drawer in his desk his gun is kept. Underneath one of Sherlock's books and some papers.

And so, he does not breathe.

'Oh just kill yourself it'll be so much easier.'


End file.
